


the manner of things

by robotchangeling



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, word eater samot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotchangeling/pseuds/robotchangeling
Summary: He is a collection of words; he is a story writing himself.





	the manner of things

**Author's Note:**

> _"do you ponder the manner of things / in the dark"_  
>  -barns courtney, glitter & gold

What comes first is not Nothing. Nor is it presence in the form of a world in the form of a dragon in the form of a man. Here is what comes first: a forest, the howls of wolves echoing through the trees, sunlight beaming accusatory through the branches, and finally, at the center of it all, himself. He will remember things that came before, once he has a grasp on memory and on beforeness, but these will always be first.

Here, also: the wolf carcass at his feet, metaphorical. The beings that flinch away from his presence. The blood on his hands, metaphorical, sometimes. (No, he is not yet a physical thing with feet to stand and hands to be bloodied. He is a collection of words. He is a story writing himself, and stories deal in metaphor as well as in anything else.)

Here he split the wolf-as-woman open and let her name spill out into his cupped hands. Now he turns her name over in his mind, feeling out the shape of it, though he knows it is not meant to remain here. The purpose in his being is laid out before him, and it seems so simple now, in a way he could not comprehend when he had nothing to contextualize it. He is a sharp line, an uncomplicated knife slashing through this complicated world. He knows he should relinquish his prey. He should let her fade away, let this be the largest gouge in a history of many chipping away at this unnatural existence.

And as he knows this, he begins to feel—deep inside himself, as a flicker growing to something impossible to ignore—that he  _ doesn't want that. _

So he holds her tight in his metaphorical fist, and he wanders. (He doesn’t think of himself as  _ he _ just yet, but he will, and it will fit him finer than any other word he could fashion.) He traverses a world in mourning, tastes  _ sorrow _ and  _ sorry _ like steel against his tongue. There is a valley, a village lit by the dawn’s golden glow. When he steps into its streets he tastes  _ future _ and  _ maybe, maybe, maybe. _

There’s so much, is the thing. He thinks he could walk forever and still not know it all. He thinks he wants to try. 

This won’t last unless he makes it last, so he tastes  _ patience _ and holds it sharpened in his teeth. When the dark comes for him, he arms himself with cunning and stands ready. Here comes a change in narrative, his first act of positive revision, as he opens his mouth and he lets her go. And, just maybe, he starts to become something new.

**Author's Note:**

> that backstory is exactly my shit, thank you tablefriends  
> find me on twitter @robotchangeling


End file.
